A journey in words...

Welcome to my journey in words! A story about health, exercise, weight loss, food addiction, humor, size discrimination, sarcasm, social commentary and all the rest that’s rattling around inside my head...

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Tuesday, July 5, 2016

The Quest for Maximum Support

Women have complicated relationships with their bras. Well, some of us
do. Some of us feel no need for them at all and to those women I say: I
sincerely envy you.

I don’t feel comfortable without one, and many times I don’t feel
comfortable with one either. My eternal quest seems to be to locate the perfect
sports bra that both halts all movement and doesn’t cost a fortune. This is
roughly about as simple as locating the mystical rainbow-farting unicorn.

This past weekend my husband needed to pick some stuff up at a store
and I tagged along with him. As he swiftly and effectively located the items on
his list, I lingered in the women’s sportswear section – noticing that they had
Champion sports bras on sale for a remarkably low $25.00 price tag. They also
had my size in two different styles, both labeled as “Maximum Support”.

Part of me just wanted to buy them and go home, but the wiser part of
my brain knew better, so I ducked into a fitting room with my potential prizes.

In both cases the size was, in fact, spot on correct. They fit well.
That’s where the good part of this story ends.

One of them had a zip-front closure. This seems like a quick and easy
solution for a sports bra which you need to get out of easily after it’s been
soaked through from sweat, however getting it on in the first place proved nigh
impossible. In order to close it I had to hold the zipper in a closed position
with two hands, then use two other hands to actually pull the zipper up. In
other words, to properly operate this bra you need four hands. As I am a
standard model two-handed human, that wasn’t working for me.

The other one featured a pull-on-over-the-head configuration. While these
seem simple, I’ve learned from past experience that the slightest moisture on
one’s skin can cause that to go very bad very quickly. Also, I feel as though
yanking bras on over my head stretches them out of shape a lot faster.
Additionally, it was a pull-on-over-the-head bra that for some silly reason
also had hook and eye closures in the back. So after pulling it on you had to
blindly grope behind you to get them closed.

Who designs these things?

Sadly, Champion’s idea of “maximum” hold in either case was an outright
laugh riot. If I tried to do Zumba in either of these bras I’d have suffered a
knockout blow when one or both halves of my frontal landscape swung upward
mid-jump and socked me in the head.

Sigh. The quest continues.

Looks deceptively simple, doesn't it?

If you think it's nigh impossible to get one of these closed while blindly groping behind you, you would be correct.